#225: Treading The Common Path Towards Uncommon Success With John Lee Dumas

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode Welcome to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel. And I'm feeling incredibly grateful to just be here with you all today in this moment. I think, feel more than anything else that gratitude, especially in the world that we're living in right now, where every day is just another adventure. It's up, it's down, it's everything in between. And for me personally, gratitude is the one thing that grounds me instantaneously. So even today where I've had some spotty news about something, something that was a little upsetting even, I'm just feeling grateful in this moment is just, it's the vaccine I need. So I also feel great about the fact that I've got an old buddy on the show today. We're gonna have a quick conversation, but it's gonna be epic as it always is with this gentleman. John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of Entrepreneurs on Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews inspiring entrepreneurs to help listeners along their entrepreneurial journey. He's interviewed over 2,600 incredible entrepreneurs, including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Barbara Corcoran, Tim Ferriss, and many more. After serving as an active-duty Army officer for 4 years, he tried law school. I did that too. He dropped out after his first semester, and I remember my first semester, and I can understand how that could happen. He was also in corporate finance and commercial real estate and pivoted, let's say, reinvented himself many times since then. First of all, John, great to have you on the show. I'm so happy to have you as a guest today.

Adam, love your energy, brother. Love your vibe. Every time we get to spend a little bit of time together, I feel like I feel a little more grateful about life.

That's way cool. Tell me, what's one thing right now that you are feeling grateful for in your life?

My 10-month-old golden doodle, Gus.

You got a golden doodle named Gus?

He's the best.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of In this era of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

Oh, little Gussie Poo.

Oh my God. Yeah. Dogs are— well, they're family members. They're not pets. They're just members of the family. So, I want to get a little bit of, you know, It's interesting because as I was reading in your bio that you've had 2,600 interviews already, I was thinking, you know, we just lost Larry King. And this is a guy who had an epic career having interviewed so many people. Were you a Larry King fan, follower, or what can you, what can you say about that kind of longevity as it relates to even your own longevity in this business so far?

He was a legend. He was a master till the end. He never wanted to stop interviewing. And that just shows you that he found his big idea and he found his zone of fire. He spent the vast majority of his life doing it. He put out so much meaningful content in such a great way. It's just impressive to see his life's work.

He had this knack, an uncanny knack, I would say, for developing rapport with people quickly. His questions, as an interviewer myself, as somebody who's been interviewed many, many times, I'm just watching the art and even the science of a great interview and how often it really is about just getting to the heart of something with not so many words. Would you agree with that? Has that been your experience?

Very astute of you, Adam. And I would say a lot of people take a lot of words to say very little. The more concise, the more you can cut to the heart of the matter, the better. And I think you're right, like, he didn't have to waste a ton of time building rapport. He just had a way of doing it quickly, meaningfully, And then getting to the real questions that his listeners wanted to hear. That's the key. A lot of people interview, they only ask questions that they want to hear, or they have what I call a curse of knowledge where they know the answer. So they just kind of skip to the next thing where a lot of times the listeners are left holding the bag of like, well, what about that gap, that loop that wasn't closed? And that's one of the best emails that I ever get, you know, on a consistent basis is when my listeners email me and say, John, You literally ask the questions that I have on the tip of my tongue, and I'm like, yes, like, that's, that's what I'm trying to do.

Yeah. So you build rapport. You've just said that in not so many words. What's the way that you do it? Is there a hack that you have for— because your format is only like 20 minutes. I know, I think something 18 to 20 minutes on average. Is that about right?

Back in the day when I was doing a 7-day-a-week show. Now I do what I call audio masterclasses, where for the past 1,000 episodes, they've been much more deep dives. Typically, 30 to 35, sometimes as long as an hour.

Yeah. So what's your secret to sort of getting to the heart of the matter quickly?

So for me, I listen. I'm a listener. I don't try to dominate the conversation. I don't try to overwhelm the conversation. I think one of, if I'm just being honest right now, the biggest flaws of most interview hosts, especially in the podcast game, is they just tell the same stories over and over again. They don't recognize and realize the fact that their listeners, number one, One, our listeners, they're subscribers. This isn't the first time they've tuned in. For the most part, they've heard 5 episodes, 10 episodes. In some cases with my show, people have heard thousands of episodes. Like, if I told the same like 7 stories that I have in my life, they would be so bored when I started telling those stories. And there are really high-profile podcasters who do that so often. And I find myself just like looking at the screen saying, why are you taking up this airtime and this bandwidth telling a story that I've heard 3 or 4 times, let alone what your actual, you know, common subscribers are talking about or are hearing over and over again because they listen much more often. So for me, I build rapport by listening, by asking the right questions, and then shutting my mouth. Because on my show with Entrepreneurs on Fire, the spotlight's on my guest the whole entire time. If you look at the total talk time, and I think anytime a host is over 20%, Then you're not really hosting, you're not really interviewing, you're kind of competing for airtime. And I see that very often.

Yeah, monologuing. It would seem to be obvious, I guess, to say that as a host, as an interviewer, you really— you benefit from being present. That would be my answer to the question I asked you. You've got to be present with people and be able in the moment to be guided rather than sort of following a script. And that might seem like common sense, but I think it was Nietzsche that said that common sense isn't common, which leads me to something that I wanted to ask you about, which is the new book that you've got out, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. Tell us a little bit about what that book is based on and really why now?

Well, thank you for those kind words. And for me, it's a culmination of the 3,000 interviews that I've now done. I know you shared 2,600, which was what it was when I sent you my bio, I'm sure, but I'm doing 5 episodes per week right now. I mean, things are moving fast. And I've done over 3,000 interviews to date since 2012. I've interviewed some of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs. I wish, by the way, back to an earlier conversation we had, that Larry King was one of those. I always kind of thought that that would happen at some point, but it never did. And, you know, that is unfortunate, and I will regret that loss for sure. But I've interviewed some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've learned so much from every single interview. There are failures, there are lessons learned from those failures, there are successes, there are tactics or strategies, you know. And not to mention running my own 7-figure-a-year business for 8 years in a row now, like, based off of those lessons I've been learning through this past decade. So for me, I just said, hey, I know that there's common things that are happening in every single one of the guests I've had on my show. I know there's fundamental principles There's elements that are being shared by all these successful entrepreneurs. And I sat down early last year, like early 2020, and I just started writing down those fundamentals. And I looked at them, I rearranged a bunch of those things, and I put them in this chronological order. And I said, that's 17 steps. Those are 17 fundamental steps. That is a roadmap right here in front of me. to financial freedom and fulfillment. And when I looked at it, I was like, this isn't a complicated path. It's not difficult. It's not scary. It's not hidden. It's not easy, by the way. Like, it's hard work. But at the same time, it's a common path because we've all trod upon this path. And that's when I said, I need to put this into words. And I spent basically all of 2020, I was quarantined in paradise down here in Puerto Rico. So I had, you know, time on my hands. And I wrote 71,000 words, 273 pages, just expounding upon these 17 fundamental principles in this chronological order, in this roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. And that's where The Common Path to Uncommon Success was born. And I decided, hey, this is my first book, like my first traditionally published book. Let's just do it right. So I went with HarperCollins. I got personally endorsed by Seth Godin, by Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, Dori Clark, Erica Mandy, just like top of the top. Very proud of that list. And I just poured everything into this book. Like, this is the culmination of all those interviews, of all of my lessons and their lessons. Not to mention, I brought 17 of whom I considered the top entrepreneurs for each one of those specific steps in the roadmap to share their thoughts, their journey, their experiences in those very things. And this book is something that I know is my best work ever. And now I'm just trying to get it into the hands of everybody who truly wants financial freedom and fulfillment. So that's the goal.

I'm curious myself. So you got 17 principles. In essence, that's what the book's made of, correct?

17 steps, 17 principles, 17 foundational elements, however you want to look.

Let's kind of tease our audience with it. Love for people to get out and get the book. And the book's not available until this coming March. And we're going to release this right around the same time as you're officially launching, so I don't have a copy of it myself. Give me a sense of what some of those things are. And let's do this. I've been an entrepreneur since I'm 15 years old, and I've run a number of multimillion-dollar companies, still do that to this day. What can you teach me?

Well, I have to know a little bit more about you, but I think one thing that I could teach—

Well, go ahead. I'll let you ask me a question if you want to know.

I know a thing I could teach a lot of people in your situation who have run you know, multi-million dollar companies, which I know you have, and I'm sure you still are, is how to keep the money you make. There are so many people in this world who are running 7-figure businesses, who have been part of 7-figure launches, who have been this and that, had this exit, that exit. And if you could just like have a snapshot of their bank account, you'd be like, where's the money, bro? Where's the money? You know, where's it at? And it's just like, they have no idea how to keep the money you make. Kind of would surprise me if you're one of those people, because one of the first things you said when we jumped on pre-interview was living that tax-free life down in Puerto Rico. So, it's obvious that you get it. But unfortunately, most people are just like, hey, I'm gonna make all this money living in California. And then all of a sudden with my ads and with my team costs and with my salaries, and then, you know, with the tax man coming in and doing this and my living expenses being way high, where's the money?

People are leaving California in droves. In fact,

Looking at one. Luckily for me, it was fine.

Musk was just the most, you know, largest name to sort of call it out that aerospace and technology and so many different businesses have left the state. And I'm a Californian at this point. I'm not planning on leaving. Our family's happy here. But we're— we spent a lot of time on the other coast as well. And there's no question that it gnaws at me. Should know.

Because, you know, I made 7-figure checks out to the government multiple years in a row when I was in California. And I just realized like something That was true for me is that you can really make money anywhere in the world, but it's almost impossible to become truly wealthy giving half of your money back to the government. Now, I've been in Puerto Rico for almost 5 years now. I have been thrilled to be able to write multi-six-figure checks to my favorite philanthropy, my favorite charities, to be very philanthropic. Those checks, I love writing. But man, those checks to the government, they just ate at my soul. It made me less productive, less motivated, less wanting to earn, because I just felt like, you know, it was unfairly being taken from me. So I spent a lot of time and a lot of focus figuring out how to legally, the right way, keep the money that I make.

One of those 17 principles, right, got to be about financial literacy. Maybe there's more than one that's that, right? Because It's one thing to earn money, it's another thing to keep your money, it's another thing to grow your money. There's like 3 different levels when it comes to that. I know a lot of people that earn heavily but are still living month to month. And I've known, as you have, a lot of people that have had some pretty successful jobs, companies, exits, etc., who are now, you know, sort of bust but have not been able to take the shackles off either, right? Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5 business leaders across the globe have taken, and all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

And I know some janitors who have made— never made more than $14,000 a year who are truly financially free. And that's what this book is all about. It's not the common path to millionaire, you know, it's the common path to uncommon success, which for somebody living on a lake house in Bozeman, Montana, making $87,000 a year doing something they love, like, wow. That is uncommon success. Like, wow, that is financial freedom. That is fulfillment if they structure their life in the right way. And that is to open people's eyes to it's not always about the dollar amounts, the high top dollar. It's about the life you construct and how you do that. And that's, again, like you mentioned, just one of these 17 steps.

Of the 17, what's your personal favorite? Which is a tough question, I know, because you wouldn't have any of them in the book if you didn't love them all, if they didn't all Weren't all meaningful. But we all get it too, that having written a few books, your book can't be 1,000 pages. So 71,000 pages or words. Yeah. What are we talking about as your, your top principle in that group?

Well, to be clear, this is a 17-step chronological roadmap. So you need to, to take every one of these steps, in my opinion, if you truly want to find your version of uncommon success.

It's a sequence. It's not one thing only. It's, it's all of these things.

But in it, you can't pick or choose. You can't be like, I'm going to apply these 3 principles or these 3 steps. It's like, you start at step 1, you start at chapter 1, and you go through chronologically step by step to step 17. But to answer your question directly, after I got finished writing chapter 7, step 7, create your content production plan, I looked down at 15,000 words. I was like, this could literally be a book in and of itself. I knew going into it how big of a part that was in our business, our content production Plan based off like, okay, this is how you are earning 7 figures net profit a year with just 3 virtual assistants. Like, this is it. Like, this is why like 2 days per month you're working really, really hard, and then 28 days per month you're just maybe putting in an hour or 2 a day, which has been my schedule for a long, long time now. Side note, not now because I'm in massive book production mode. I'm working my face off for the next 2 months. But But typically, it's my content production plan. And it is mind-blowing to me when I actually looked back and said, oh, these are the tools. These are the steps and the automations and the systems that we've implemented over the past 9 years now that have turned Entrepreneurs on Fire into this income-producing, content-producing, well-oiled machine that it is. And that chapter just blew me away. Again, I knew it on some level that it was impressive, but this was just next level. I'm like, this is really cool for me to just sit down and over many, many weeks, write those 15,000 words, that meaty, meaty step, that chapter in the book, and then to look back at it and say, this is it.

There are thousands of podcasts out there, more today than there have ever been before. Most of those podcasts are not getting more than a few thousand, 4,000 or 5,000 downloads a month. At best. So what's the difference? Is there one thing that you can point to that's the difference between a podcast that might be around for years even, that just sort of languishes and doesn't have a lot of energy around it and can't create some of the opportunities you have, and what you were able to establish and what you've been growing for? I don't know, how long has your podcast been in existence for? I know you were 5 years in Puerto Rico, but you started it while you were still in the States, right?

2012, the podcast launched. So we're on our 9th year as we speak right now. Yeah. The podcasts that win in today's world, in yesterday's world, in tomorrow's world are the podcasts that solve one legitimate major problem better than anybody else. Those podcasts win. Every other podcast fails on certain levels. And so when that next show comes out, you know, that wants to interview entrepreneurs, they fail because they are not Solving a major problem at the best possible level, meaning they're going up against fantastic other shows, they're going to get wiped out, they're going to get lost in the noise. Entrepreneurs on Fire won because the day that I launched back in 2012, it was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the worst daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. That's why Entrepreneurs on Fire won.

You were first to market. Okay. So, it's a market So, the market is listening to this right now is going, all right, am I hooped?

You are, unless you listen to the last thing that I said and you actually sit down and become the best solution to a real problem. And there's a million problems out there that have no solution. So, go be the best there. Fill that void.

Is there one common mistake among podcasters that you— because you're going to get a lot of people listening to this even in our community who either have one or thought of creating one. So what's something that your experience tells you is either a best practice or even something to avoid when they're getting started, or even if they've been doing it a while but just haven't had that tipping point?

Something to avoid: stop being a pale, weak imitation of 1,000 other shows. And that's what 90-plus percent of podcasts are that are out there. They look at other shows that are having some success and they say, I'm gonna do that. And it's like, we don't need another that. What we need is a special, unique, different show that is solving a serious problem better than anybody else? And if you can't honestly answer that question with your podcast, that's okay. You can go to step number 2, chapter number 2 in my book, and you can discover your niche. That's where most people fail. They don't discover their correct niche. So they just are doing this broad, vague, weak imitation of everybody else. Instead of just saying, well, what if I just niche this level down? Oh wait, there's still some competition here. What if I just went one more niche down? Oh wow, nobody's doing this thing here. I couldn't have just launched a weekly podcast back in 2012 and been a success. I was a bad podcast host. I was a terrible interviewer. There were other shows that were doing that thing. So I niched down and became the only. I was the first mover advantage, and that's why I won. Entrepreneurs on Fire launched today. It won in 2012 because it was the only solution to a real problem in the marketplace.

Let's go to 2020 instead. This is my last question for you, John, which is your business and your life was impacted by the pandemic as everyone was. I heard you say earlier that you took last year in part to write the book, that you were inspired to start writing the book. This show is called The Conscious Pivot, which is about how it is that you pivot with some element of planning, and consciousness, as opposed to being in reaction or acting out of fear. So, what was the hardest part of 2020 for you? Did you have any tremendous doubts or things that you had to pivot out of, even if they were things that were inside of your head or things that were going on in your business? What did that look like for you?

Honestly, 2020 was more of a validation that I built the right business because my business had a banner year. It was a better year than 2019 because more people came flocking into the podcasting world, more people came flocking to the online business world. And I've positioned myself for those individuals to help those individuals. So 2020 was just a year kind of a validation that I made the right decisions in my past. I've made terrible decisions in my past. Luckily, they weren't the final decisions and I was able to recover from them, such as law school and corporate finance and real estate and these other things. I was able to pivot from those and keep moving forward. I was able to avoid what I call the sunk cost fallacy of saying, just because I spent one semester in law school, I had to spend the next 40 years of my life being a lawyer, which so many lawyers today are doing. And they're just like, I just thought I had to keep going forward because—

I see it all the time with my former colleagues. They just got so much. And it's not just in the law, but so many people think that they've got so much time invested in a business model or something That they can't pivot at some point. So what I'm hearing you say, and maybe a little, a little, um, bit of a tough pill for people to swallow, but if right now what you're hearing is that your podcast falls into that category that, that John Lee was describing, that one where you are just a pale— what'd you say? A pale, mediocre imitation of some other show or some other idea, then you got to pivot. You got to stop doing that and create something that's going to be your unique gift and your unique offering to solve a problem in the world. I get that right?

Every day is a new day. Every day is a brand new day. And when you're letting yesterday, last week, last month, last year dictate your tomorrow, you're going to lose unless you're currently living your, your life of financial freedom and fulfillment. If you're living that life right now, then awesome. But if you're not, tomorrow is a new day. Wipe that slate clean, figure out your new path, And go forward in that path because this is the one life to live. It's not like your past self has the power to sentence you to a life of mediocrity and drudgery. You can clean that slate today if you so choose and go forward in the fresh new direction that you know you want to do. I've had to do that so many times in my life. And again, Entrepreneurs on Fire didn't happen for me until I was 32 years old. I mean, that's 32 years Of like, you know, making the wrong decisions as far as like not doing what I was meant to do or what I should do or what I wanted to do, but learning from all of those.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproofbook.com. And not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

And that's what brought me to where I am today.

The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the book. In the show notes, you guys will find links to be able to order, preorder, et cetera. And Jon Lee, it's been a pleasure to see you again, buddy. I'm glad you're safe and secure in Puerto Rico and that there are no more I know you guys weathered the storm really well. We talked about that before the show started. I'm glad everything is well with you personally and in your business, and we'll see you again soon.

Thank you.

Ciao. So I totally loved my conversation with John Lee Dumas, and I want to just send out this reminder to all of us right now as we are considering the pivots that are upon us, the ones that have yet to be revealed. It's so important that we give ourselves a break. We love ourselves even more in the midst of those pivots, both good, the bad, the ugly. I mean, just because things are going well doesn't mean there isn't stress. We know the stress involved in kind of every aspect of living a fulfilled life. So 3 quick things to remind us all about. One is let's wake up again tomorrow. We did today, let's do it again tomorrow. 2, let's feel grateful. Just the way we started this show with gratitude, we end with gratitude. We begin with gratitude. gratitude. It becomes something that just is, is a part of the ritual of living a healthy life, to be grateful. And lastly, when you wake up tomorrow from bed, before your feet even hit the floor, consider these 4 words: I love my life. I love my life. And I know I love my life even more every time I get the chance to sit in front of this mic and spend time with all of you. So ciao for now. Ciao. We'll see you soon, and thank you so much for being a part of the show.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com. Thank you.